Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)

Leukemia is a cancer Overview of Cancer Cancer is the out-of-control growth of cells in your body. Cells are the tiny building blocks of your body. Cells specialize in what they do. For example, your intestines have muscle cells to... read more of white blood cells. White blood cells have many jobs, including helping your body's immune system Overview of the Immune System The immune system is your body's defense system. It helps protect you from illness and infection. The immune system's job is to attack things that don’t belong in your body, including: Germs... read more fight off infection. White blood cells White Blood Cells The main components of blood include Plasma Red blood cells White blood cells Platelets read more form in your bone marrow, the spongy tissue inside your bones.

With leukemia, you have a very high white blood cell count. However, the cancerous white blood cells don't work properly, so you're likely to get infections. Those infections may be life-threatening.

Also, the cancerous white blood cells fill up your bone marrow so it can't make normal blood cells such as:

There are many different types of white blood cells but only 2 main types of leukemia:

Lymphocytic and myelogenous leukemia can be acute or chronic:

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer of certain types of white blood cells.

AML starts in your bone marrow, the spongy tissue inside your bones. Certain types of very young cells (called myeloid stem cells) in your bone marrow that should develop into different types of white blood cells instead become cancerous. The cancer cells grow and spread into your blood and to other parts of your body.

"Acute" means this type of myeloid leukemia spreads very quickly and needs immediate treatment. It's life-threatening.

There are several types of AML. One type, called acute promyelocytic leukemia, is now highly curable.

Symptoms of AML may include:

Leukemia cells get into your blood and move to other organs. They can form small lumps in or under your:

AML cells can also spread to the brain and spinal cord, causing symptoms such as:

Acute promyelocytic leukemia can also cause:

To tell if you have AML, doctors will:

Other tests to see if AML has spread to major organs may include:

Doctors treat AML with chemotherapy Chemotherapy Chemotherapy is a drug that destroys cancer cells. Chemotherapy works by shutting down cell growth. But since all cells in the body grow, chemotherapy drugs also destroy some normal cells and... read more . Chemotherapy, often called “chemo,” is when doctors give you one or more very strong medicines to kill your cancer cells. Other types of medicines and treatments are often used along with chemotherapy to treat the cancer. The goal is cure. If you're cured, you have no cancer cells left in your body. If a cure isn't possible, then the goal is to decrease the number of cancer cells and keep that number low for as long as possible.

Chemotherapy may make you sicker before you get better. The medicines:

Treatment for AML goes through 2 phases:

Induction involves getting several strong chemotherapy drugs. The goal of induction is to kill most or all of your cancer cells (called remission).

Consolidation involves getting the same or different chemotherapy drugs for a few months to keep the leukemia from coming back.

Doctors treat acute promyelocytic leukemia with: